We've all heard this before how guests can abuse the payment pending process to block out your calander on same day stays with 16 hours penalty free often going into the day after there actual night they wanted to stay.
In the past airbnb would accept us calling to cancel there resevation after about a hour when requested by the host that the guest can rebook once they sort out there payment issues.
Recently airbnb now all the time says "No they are entitled to the full 16 hours" i esculated it 3 times and all they do now is throw the rule book at me.
There has to be a process where airbnb never allows any guest to book/block your calander unless there ID and payment is already ok.
We had the opening of the snow season here in Australia and myself and another 3 hosts i know had this happen to us we all got ZERO from airbnb they said the terms are guest have 16 hours to pay even if its the day after.
Airbnb refused us challanging the request that airbnb cancel there "booking" when payment pending wasn't promptly done.
The worst thing about it is my senior case manager said theres nothing we can do the guest withdrew the booking 5 minutes before the deadline "the day after" so they would avoid any penalty and regardless the rules are they get x time anyway.
Not to mention with all this hype about new host guarentees's/aircover etc my resolutions are still waiting a outcome 3 months late over small things like $150 of cleaning damages clearly shown in the initial request just bounching around to 3 different departments asking for the same evidence. Prior to this year this was always dealt with quickly.
Airbnb support for hosts has gone from a 8/10 to about a 5 now and its not like ive ever claimed more than $300 a few times in the last 4 years airbnb!!
